There have always been a number of different ways of producing winners from elections, strict representational, electoral systems, runoffs, or even a multiple vote system (where each voter has a first, second, third, etc choice and the winner is then determined by a cumulative point system. In this latter scheme (which, as far as I know, is not actually in place anywhere in the world), the winner of an election may very well turn out to be the guy with the most 2nd place votes because all the 1st place opponents cancel each other out.

The ideal system should be easy to administer, difficult to game with clever campaign strategies, and not favor particular geographical or population distributions. It will always be a compromise, but the final result should primarily depend on candidates fearing a lot of people will not like their policies, not on how to mount an effective race.

One of my utopian fantasies (totally unimplementable in the real world) involves candidates achieving office as a result of seniority or some abstract but constitutional administrative procedure, or perhaps selection by their colleagues. Then, they could be recalled by popular vote at periodic elections. Elections will be won on performance, not promises. This is based on the idea that voters have no way of knowing how a politician is going to work out ahead of time, but they are perfectly qualified to identify one that is not working out.